EAST VILLAGE, Manhattan — Ray’s Candy Store, an East Village institution, is a 24-hour spot famous for its egg creams and other indulgent goodies.
Titular proprietor Ray Alvarez bought the shop back in 1974 and has an origin story as rich as one of his fried candy bars.
Alvarez was born Asghar Ghahraman on a farm in Iran, in 1933. His mother died when he was only a few weeks old. The boy’s father sent him to live with his teenage sister in Tehran, where Alvarez would play outside watching neighbors go about their days. Often left to fend for himself, he remembers a big moment when, “I asked a young boy, ‘where are you going?’ He said, ‘School, you learn a lot of things.’ So I followed him.”
Before long, Ray’s father took him out of school and put him to work in a factory making elastic for 79 cents per week. Eventually, the promise of meals a day and more money attracted Alvarez to the Iranian Navy. He signed up and was assigned to work on a ship’s boiler belowdecks. Less than a decade later, Alvarez was over life in the Navy. “I stayed on that ship 9 years. I want to jump, I want to get out,” says Alvarez. He’d get his chance when his ship docked in Norfol1k, Virginia.
Alvarez “jumped ship” the night before his ship was scheduled to leave Virginia and bought a bus ticket to Miami. He needed a new life and a job but didn’t have the legal documentation. That’s when Asghar Ghahraman started going by “Ramon Alvarez.” Before long he was on a bus to New York City with only $7 left to his name.
Ray struck out looking for jobs at bars and restaurants when he first arrived. An employment agency placed him at a tennis club where Alvarez excelled and worked for the next ten years. Alvarez says things went south when his manager blackmailed him over his citizenship status. “One day he said, ‘you know what… Immigration! They come with handcuffs and send you to your country. But if I give him $5,000 (he) don’t call no immigration,” Alvarez paid up. He says his boss, “didn’t call immigration and I never got that money back.”
Alvarez had been saving money while he had been living in New York and was looking to purchase a restaurant. A friend suggested Ray buy a candy store instead, considering the volatile nature of the restaurant business. Luckily a guy on Avenue A was ready to cash out. He sold the store to Alvarez for the $33,000 he had in his savings.
In 1986, Alvarez received amnesty when President Ronald Regan signed the Immigration Reform and Control Act. In 2011 he officially became a naturalized American citizen.
The 92-year-old neighborhood celebrity says he still has years of work left in him, proclaiming, “8 more years… I’ll be 100. I’ll retire.”
Duncan Meyers, founder of BDJOBSTODAY, shares expert career advice, job market insights, and practical tips to help professionals grow and succeed in their careers.
